Every year, an empty field in Virginia is transformed into a small city with tents everywhere. The tents provide stabling for 500 horses, VIP seating and venders. Two large office trailers provide the room for servers and desks full of staff taking entries and keeping track of results on laptops. Two video production trailers provide international live feed of the 5-6 video cameras covering the 4 separate show rings. Each individual ride video is recorded, edited and packaged so the riders can later purchase them.

Three giant video screens work as score boards, provide live video, and run sponsorship advertisements.

Four starting gates (one of each ring) have to be connected to the network so the names of riders can be entered and relayed back to the servers keeping track of everything. Free Wifi is provided at the VIP tents and the Press Tents.

All of this is powered by a UniFi.

The aerial photo below shows about 1/4 of the show.

As you can imagine, this all requires quite a bit of connectivity infrastructure. We have installed miles underground fiber cables to connect video cameras, scoreboards and of course network data.

This year the show consumed 1.7 Terabytes of WAN traffic during the 7 days. LAN was much more.

In addition to UniFi products, there's a whole mix of other Ubiquiti products used to pull off this show. Starting with the AF5X-HD LTU high capacity uplink, to EdgeRouter ER-6P and EdgePoints R6 as switches, to AirMax AC isoStations for starting gate links.

But it's the UniFi controller that keeps track of everything and tells us what is going on.

This year, we suddenly lost connectivity to the Press Tent AP's, VIP Tent AP's and two of the starting gates. The UniFi controller noticed and reported this before we even received on the ground complaints. The UniFi controller's big picture reporting of what was down allowed us to quickly head to the correct EdgePoint R6 switch and we quickly noticed that the food caterers that plugged in two large coffee makers into the same circuit and blown the breaker that powered the switch. Easy fix!

This year we choose the nanoHD as our AP at most locations. The nanoHD has amazing price performance. It's a 4x4 Wave2 MU-MIMO AP priced below $200.

Here's one at the ceiling of the Press Tent.

Since the show only lasts 1-week, we don't get fancy with the install. Here's another nanoHD in one of the remote office trailers with dozens of laptops connected. As long as they don't throw too many boxes on top of it, it runs fine!

For the 400ft long VIP tent, we used two directly wired UniFi Mesh Pro's as the AP's.

And below two photos of some of the connectivity going on behind the scenes.

Below a 12 strand fiber ribbon arrives in the box on the right. It connectors a data pair for fiber strands to the EdgePoint R6, which powers the AirMax AP's for the starting gates in that area. It also connects to the office trailer in that area of the show.

The black device to the left of the EP-R6 is a fiber to camera media converter for the Video camera position just above this location. There is also a 12 strand fiber ribbon going to the next ring over and the fiber strand for that ring's video camera is jumpered here as well. All the fiber jumpers are left in place and everything is labeled for quick reconnection of the video cameras and giant screens next year. We added the new 12-strand fiber to the other ring this year.

Below is another fiber termination box with 48 strands coming in. What I like about this photo is that I documented and jumpered the fiber enough that the video crews and scoreboard connection crews we able to connect all this without my help.

There are various fiber to HDMI media converters that use my fiber infrastructure to connect video camera and score boards out in the field, back to this central area. It's all set up quickly and then taken back down a week later.

Finally, after a week of activity, the place turns back into a large empty field for the rest of the year. An empty field with a lot of fiber, electical and water infrastructure hidden below ground ready for next year.

The nanoHD's with 4X4 Wave2 MU-MIMO are arriving at the distributors right about now.

UniFi and nanoHD powers USA's Oldest Horse Show.

Every year, an empty field in Virginia is transformed into a small city with tents everywhere. The tents provide stabling for 500 horses, VIP seating and venders. Two large office trailers provide the room for servers and desks full of staff taking entries and keeping track of results on laptops. Two video production trailers provide international live feed of the 5-6 video cameras covering the 4 separate show rings. Each individual ride video is recorded, edited and packaged so the riders can later purchase them.

Three giant video screens work as score boards, provide live video, and run sponsorship advertisements.

Four starting gates (one of each ring) have to be connected to the network so the names of riders can be entered and relayed back to the servers keeping track of everything. Free Wifi is provided at the VIP tents and the Press Tents.

All of this is powered by a UniFi.

The aerial photo below shows about 1/4 of the show.

As you can imagine, this all requires quite a bit of connectivity infrastructure. We have installed miles underground fiber cables to connect video cameras, scoreboards and of course network data.

This year the show consumed 1.7 Terabytes of WAN traffic during the 7 days. LAN was much more.

In addition to UniFi products, there's a whole mix of other Ubiquiti products used to pull off this show. Starting with the AF5X-HD LTU high capacity uplink, to EdgeRouter ER-6P and EdgePoints R6 as switches, to AirMax AC isoStations for starting gate links.

But it's the UniFi controller that keeps track of everything and tells us what is going on.

This year, we suddenly lost connectivity to the Press Tent AP's, VIP Tent AP's and two of the starting gates. The UniFi controller noticed and reported this before we even received on the ground complaints. The UniFi controller's big picture reporting of what was down allowed us to quickly head to the correct EdgePoint R6 switch and we quickly noticed that the food caterers that plugged in two large coffee makers into the same circuit and blown the breaker that powered the switch. Easy fix!

This year we choose the nanoHD as our AP at most locations. The nanoHD has amazing price performance. It's a 4x4 Wave2 MU-MIMO AP priced below $200.

Here's one at the ceiling of the Press Tent.

Since the show only lasts 1-week, we don't get fancy with the install. Here's another nanoHD in one of the remote office trailers with dozens of laptops connected. As long as they don't throw too many boxes on top of it, it runs fine!

For the 400ft long VIP tent, we used two directly wired UniFi Mesh Pro's as the AP's.

And below two photos of some of the connectivity going on behind the scenes.

Below a 12 strand fiber ribbon arrives in the box on the right. It connectors a data pair for fiber strands to the EdgePoint R6, which powers the AirMax AP's for the starting gates in that area. It also connects to the office trailer in that area of the show.

The black device to the left of the EP-R6 is a fiber to camera media converter for the Video camera position just above this location. There is also a 12 strand fiber ribbon going to the next ring over and the fiber strand for that ring's video camera is jumpered here as well. All the fiber jumpers are left in place and everything is labeled for quick reconnection of the video cameras and giant screens next year. We added the new 12-strand fiber to the other ring this year.

Below is another fiber termination box with 48 strands coming in. What I like about this photo is that I documented and jumpered the fiber enough that the video crews and scoreboard connection crews we able to connect all this without my help.

There are various fiber to HDMI media converters that use my fiber infrastructure to connect video camera and score boards out in the field, back to this central area. It's all set up quickly and then taken back down a week later.

Finally, after a week of activity, the place turns back into a large empty field for the rest of the year. An empty field with a lot of fiber, electical and water infrastructure hidden below ground ready for next year.

The nanoHD's with 4X4 Wave2 MU-MIMO are arriving at the distributors right about now.